Being Crafty, day one

(This week, because I'm feeling crafty, I thought I'd write a couple posts about some of the nerdy craft things I've been working on. Enjoy. Or mock. Whichever you'd like.)

A week or so ago, while trolling Pinterest I came across a picture that I just had to pin. It was a collection of fall wreaths. They were cute and inspiring. I looked at the pin nearly every day for the last week and thought, I can do that. Mine didn't turn out nearly as cute as the one that I pinned, but it still turned out just fine.

Considering that I have no holiday decorations at all because I've spent the last many years being a scrooge, having something cutesy in the house is a nice touch.

I bought a straw wreath, some gray yard and a piece each of black and yellow felt. The entire project cost me $8 and some change.  It took me about two hours to wrap the straw wreath in the yarn (I should have gone smaller in size and styrofoam in material...next time.) and about two minutes to make the bats, the moon, and hot glue them on.

Something cute and festive for the new house.

I guess I'll keep it.

Crossing Zone

My boys are goofballs.  They think its funny when, lets say they are supposed to be eating their lunch and instead they start farting and burping at the table and laughing so hard they fall to the floor.  They think it's funny to use "bathroom" words in their every day conversations.  They think it's funny to play veterinarian to the giant stuffed elephant and not be able to figure out why he's throwing up even though he just has a sinus infection.

My mom took them to the circus yesterday and what did they love?  Everything.  What did they love the most?  The guy who lit himself on fire and the pooping elephants who rolled a giant piece of lumber around with poop on it.

Hi-larious!

They could also be on David Letterman doing stupid human tricks.  They think that if they distract me with these tricks they don't have to eat lunch - like I won't notice a plate of food sitting un-touched.

I notice.

I laugh at the tricks, but their powers of deception are no match for the evil mother lord.

That's me.

Anyway - the trick of the day, the other day was eye crossing.  It was funny.  Elliott is good at it.

Watch this.

And, not to be out done, the little brother is also good at "crossing his eyes"....if you can call it that.

Junior Bird man

 

 So, we have a tradition in our family of doing the "Mr. bird man", or "the owl" (hoot!). Whatever you want to call it, it's a process of flipping our hands upside down, putting them over our eyes and yelling "caw, caw!" after it. My mom taught us chillins' how to do it, I've never seen my dad do it, my husband can do it, his mother cannot. 

 I've been trying for 2.5 years to get my kid to do it. We practice and practice and practice. Really, we do.  It's important. It's one of those right of passage things like curling your tongue and crossing your eyes. Yesterday, we were eating lunch and that boy of mine turned to me, flipped his hands and voila!

HE DID IT! 

 I immediately made him do it again, took his picture, and sent it off to grandma, uncle willie, auntie haley and dad. It was a milestone worth documenting.

Then what did we do? We spent the rest of the day being junior bird men of course. And, trying to get the Chick to do it. 

 That my friends, is going to take another 2 and a half years.

the week in pictures

It's Friday. Friday is good. Ross just called me to tell me that the Internet is out in his office which means, for an international finance guy like him, nothing can be accomplished without the Internet. I asked him if he gets to employ the college rule - you know the one, if the professor doesn't show up in 20 minutes you get to leave. He told me no, but if the IT guy doesn't return his phone call soon, he may bail for the day. I then dared him to come home early, on a Friday (pretty unprecedented in these parts) and defined early as by 3:00 pm. Not sure what our wager is, but we're probably going to Costco tonight and it could be the difference between a real dinner in a real restaurant or a churro from their snack area.

I vote real dinner.

I'm not one to generally say that time moves quickly or slowly, but this week has flown by. Can you believe were already in the middle of September? Holy cow! It's important to note as well that our satellite TV has been on the fritz and the boys and I, minus a movie the other afternoon, have survived without the boob tube all week. Know what that means? A whole helluva lot of craft projects and errand running and neighborhood walks and yard work and trips to the mailbox and soccer ball kicking....you get the idea.  The Chick even decided to not have a nap yesterday (gasp!) and we survived. Barely, but we survived a napless two year old, which by the way, isn't really something I'd wish on anyone.

And another tangent....I've performed some sort of exercise every day this week, including playing volleyball last night. Church volleyball is totally lame because it's just a rally scoring serve fest, but it was fun to play for an hour and block a couple of really bad attempts by the other team to hit the ball over the net. I was only told that I was tall twice, and only told that i was good once. I'm not good, by the way. I am however tall.

When I got home last night from volleyball, the boys were watching a show (one TV does work, just not the one we usually watch) with their dad about caimans - they're like crocodiles. We have the national geographic channel and that four year old of mine had his mind blown. To his dad he said, "you mean to tell me that there is a channel that just has shows about animals? Whole shows about animals?" Yes, that's what he really said. He's a total nerd, just like his parents.

This week I also started officially using Instagram on my phone. I'm doing it for nothing else than the fact that there are cool edits AND it will automatically upload to twitter and flickr - the places I dump pictures most frequently. It's a very symbiotic relationship. I am the rhinoceros and Instagram is my ox pecker (the bird that eats bugs off my neck....or uploads pictures from my phone automatically). Anyway - the whole point of this post was to share some pictures. Here they are.

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Tuesday was my grandma's birthday and the boys and I took her flowers.

 

Watching a movie and just chillin' cause we can.

 

I've eaten corn nearly every day this week, savoring it before it's all gone until the end of next summer. It's been so tasty, too.

 

My nightstand is currently home to 14 books. I've almost read them all, but have run out of bookshelves to house them when I'm finished.

 

One of our many crafty adventures for the week - we made crowns...even one for our dad (his isn't pictured though, but it's cool!)

 

The closest I've ever come to being a vegetarian was last night. Everything I ate for dinner was from the local farm stand. I did eat a little steak, but just a little...the carnivores in my house devoured it first.

In a nutshell....

Since we never go on vacation, we decided to turn this weekend into a cheesy "mini" vacation.  My brother had a football game on the campus of Weber State University at 8:00 pm on Friday night.  That's a late game and the thought of driving two groggy kiddos home at 10:30 pm for a two hour drive where inevitably upon arriving home they would wake up and be mean, we decided to stay the night in Ogden and have some fun.

So, the weekend was set.  We slept in a hotel by the freeway.  We ate breakfast, wandered the Ogden farmers market, got two mint limeades and figured out the recipe to try at home, went to the tree house museum so the kids could play, drove through the canyon, played at a park in Huntsville and ate some good BBQ at Texas Pride.  On the way home, the chillins crashed hard and it was a peaceful drive home.

Unfortunately, we arrived home to FOOTBALL ON TV so for those of you who know my husband, you know how the rest of our night went.


On Thursday, before our "vacation" the boys and I went to the zoo...because that's how we roll.